The KRAB Archive
Ethnic Music with Robert Garfias

Between 1962 and 1968, Professor Robert Garfias served as KRAB's first music director. He selected the music heard on KRAB, and assembled programs that frequently juxtaposed musical genres in unique and imaginative ways. During that period, and subsequently, he produced a program of "ethnic music" that introduced KRAB listeners to a vast array of the music of other countries and cultures. These were the best of KRAB's ethnic music programming, with commentary by Robert and his students from the ethnomusicology program at the University of Washington. The commentary helped even non-musicians to better understand why the music sounded the way it did. Sometimes that meant explaining the role of the music, putting it in the context of that particular culture's world view. Or, it might mean talking about the instrumentation, the history or development of a particular instrument or group of musicians. There were even occasions when they would stray into musical theory, using language with which many listeners may have been unfamiliar, but that fascinated and inspired some to pursue fluency.

Here is a brief biographical sketch of Robert from the Newsletter of the Society for Ethnomusicology (Sep 2013, vol 47, number 4): Robert Garfias was born in San Francisco in 1932, the child of Mexican-American parents. As a youngster he studied classical guitar and jazz saxophone. In high school he studied Western classical music composition, and he formed a jazz combo that played gigs for beatniks in the North Beach area of San Francisco, where he traveled in a circle of musicians that included Dave Brubeck, Vince Delgado, Vince Guaraldi, Harry Partch, and Bill Smith. During his career he founded the ethnomusicology program at the University of Washington; served as Dean of Arts at the University of California, Irvine, as a member of the Smithsonian Council, and as a presidential appointee to the U.S. National Council for the Arts; and conducted significant periods of fieldwork and language study in Japan, Okinawa, Korea, the Philippines, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Central America, Burma, Romania, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, and among Okinawans in the United States. His autobiographical reflections can be found in Robert Garfias, “Introduction: Reflections on the Formation of an Ethnomusicologist,” in Ethnomusicological Encounters with Music and Musicians, Timothy Rice, ed. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 1-17.

The programs are listed in chronological order of original air date.

Music of Japan Nbr 10 - History of the Koto with Robert Garfias - KPFA Sep 1, 1955

The development and history of the instrument. Another in the series of talks about the music of Japan, by Bob Garfias. [KPFA folio vol 6, nbr 11, Aug 21 - Sep 3, 1955]

We have managed to acquire several recordings from an eleven part series about the music of Japan that Professor Garfias produced in 1955.

Ethnic Music with Robert Garfias - Indian drums - KRAB Jan 14, 1963

Dated Jan 14, 1963, only 4 weeks after KRAB went on the air, this may be the earliest of Robert Garfias' Ethnic Music programs. In it he plays examples and discusses Indian drums and drumming technique. We now have parts 2, 3 and 4.

There are close to 200 Ethnic Music programs by Robert Garfias in the Jack Straw collection.

Ethnic Music with Robert Garfias - Japanese Music - 2 of 4 - KRAB Dec 1, 1971

Robert has been reading from "The San Francisco Earthquake" by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts. Although titled "Japanese Music", this short clip is mostly Weather Report's "Orange Lady", followed by "Two Studies in the Ancient Greek and Harmonic Scales" by Harry Partch.